All Videos — March 25, 2011

How to Stop Robots From Killing Us

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Even if the Singularity is bogus, machines very well may be as smart as humans by century’s end. How will we make sure they don’t turn on us? Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, says Dr. Kaku.

The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

Collage with a steam locomotive, a globe with a syringe, and train tracks sparks curiosity, overlaid by the text "The Nightcrawler" on a dark grid background.

Business

Curiosity as a survival skill to navigate change

Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.

Starts With A Bang

The red color of Mars is mere inches deep

The surface and atmosphere is colored by ferric oxides. Beneath a very thin layer, mere millimeters deep in places, it’s not red anymore.

A digital illustration of a brain, composed of circuit-like lines, appears against a black background filled with white dots resembling stars.

Neuropsych

The illusion of conscious AI

“Nobody expects a computer simulation of a hurricane to generate real wind and real rain,” writes neuroscientist Anil Seth.

Close-up illustration of a neuron cell with branching dendrites and axon, set against a dark background with small glowing particles, evoking the intricate physics of consciousness.

Starts With A Bang

Does physics truly have anything to say about consciousness?

Many, from neuroscientists to philosophers to anesthesiologists, have claimed to understand consciousness. Do physicists? Does anyone?

Scatter plot with dark blue data points and black dashed elliptical contours centered on the origin, with axes labeled ξ (') horizontally and vertically—similar to plots used by astronomers in studies of the smallest galaxy ever discovered.

Starts With A Bang

Astronomers just found the smallest galaxy ever

With stars, gas, and dark matter, galaxies come in a great array of sizes. This new one, Ursa Major III/UNIONS 1, is the smallest by far.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

Wisconsin GOP Launches Witch Hunt Against Professor William Cronon

Today’s copy of the New York Times sits beside me, unopened. Most of my normal internet haunts have been ignored this morning. Why? Because I have been totally absorbed by […]